Introduction
Khadija Saye (30 July 1992 – 14 June 2017), also known as Ya-Haddy Sisi Saye, was a Gambian-British photographer.
Life
Saye was born in London and initially attended the Sion Manning Roman Catholic School for Girls in North Kensington. At age 16 she won a scholarship to Rugby School in Rugby, England. Later she attended the University for the Creative Arts at Farnham and obtained a photography degree. She was mentored by artist Nicola Green and became friends with Green's husband, Tottenham MP David Lammy.
In 2017 her series of photographs entitled Dwellings: in this Space we Breathe, based on Gambian spiritual practices, was exhibited in the Diaspora Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
She lived with her mother, Mary Ajaoi Augustus Mendy, on the 20th floor of Grenfell Tower in North Kensington. Both died in the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017. Following her death, Tate Britain announced that it would exhibit a silkscreen of one of the pieces from the Dwellings series, Sothiou (2017), in the memorials section.
The BBC had been planning to broadcast on 17 June a documentary TV programme, Venice Biennale: Sink or Swim, that included Saye. The programme "follows a team of diverse emerging artists as they install and prepare to launch the first ever Diaspora Pavilion in a Venetian palazzo during the Venice Biennale". The programme was postponed after the fire and transmitted in September 2017.